The Right Time for Goodbye
by Heather Truex, former Kaio Member
Goodbyes are hard. In my 27 years, I think the hardest thing I’ve had to learn is how to accept that goodbyes are part of life.
I spent two years as a Kaio member at Emmaus. In the Kaio Community, we tend to form very close friendships. In my second year, we said a lot of goodbyes. One of the most difficult was the departure of a good friend and fellow Kaio member.
A couple of weeks before my fellow Kaio member left, I remember talking with Franklin in the Ministry Center about this impending goodbye. He said something that really struck a chord with me:
“We all have our time.”
Franklin resonated with the idea that it was hard to watch another person leave Emmaus. “But I’m also used to it,” he explained.
“Every year, Kaio members come and go, and it’s good to have them here, but you just can’t hold on too tight. We all have our time. Even I have my time. I’m grateful to be coming to Emmaus right now, but, Lord willing, someday I’ll have to stop coming. I hope someday I’ll have to stop coming.”
He stopped and looked at me to see if I was following his line of thought.
If, someday, Franklin stops coming to Emmaus, it’ll be because he’s better. Because he’s no longer on the streets, no longer using drugs, and no longer hiding in shame from God’s love.
It’ll be because he doesn’t need Emmaus anymore.
For a long time, I’ve wrestled with the fact that God gives and takes away, especially when it comes to people. This truth about who God is has been both the destruction and reconstruction of my faith over the years. How can I trust a God who takes away the good things he gives? How can that be good? But then, maybe sometimes it is.
That conversation with Franklin helped me begin to accept life’s goodbyes. I was reminded that, though there is sorrow, there can also be joy in parting. If Franklin someday stops coming to Emmaus because he no longer needs us, that’ll be cause for celebration!
I’m amazed at how often God used the men to minister to me in my weakest moments while I was at Emmaus. Leaving Emmaus wasn’t easy, and although I’ve now been gone a few months, I still miss the men deeply. But as I’ve stepped away, I’ve remembered Franklin’s words: we all have our time. If that’s true, then God, in his baffling sovereignty, certainly knows the right time for every goodbye. He knows our comings and goings, and there’s peace in that.